For the love of butter!

Pumpkin Pie

I decided to make a pumpkin pie. Now I’ve never had a good slice of pumpkin pie so I thought maybe the home made version might be worth a stab.

I had no idea how difficult cutting up the pumpkin would be, as you can see from the photo I struggled a bit. After HALF AN HOUR of chopping I finally dismembered the pumpkin and was ready to start boiling its flesh. How do people carve them into amazing shapes without taking their fingers off?

I followed a simple recipe from the BBC good food website. The idea is that you boil the pumpkin (I was surprised there was no roasting involved) and then smash it through a sieve once it’s cooked and soft to make a puree. Now that was quite a task and I got quite a sweat on actually. I just whacked the pumpkin with a wooden rolling pin through the sieve until I realised I should have blended it in my tiny magic bullet. But never mind, I did not DEVIATE from the methodology – which is something I often do (quite worrying really seeing as I’m a scientist by day). I did deviate from the recipe though, it states using milk in the pumpkin filling once you’ve mixed up your spices (nutmeg, cinnamon and a cheeky bit of ginger – also another addition of mine) but why use milk when you could use DOUBLE CREAM? Om nom nom nom. Then there’s lots of sugar and eggs and voila the filling is ready.

Whilst all of this is going on, the pastry needs to be made and chilling in the fridge. I followed Jamie Oliver’s sweet short crust pastry recipe which is excellent. Look at that butter, doesn’t it look wonderful?

I blind baked my pastry case and then filled it with the glorious spiced, creamy pumpkin mixture and then baked it for about 35 -40 minutes. Looks just about right for Halloween time! The short crust pastry was wonderful to cut into and had no soggy bottom which is always a relief. It tasted amazing and I will make it again, although next time I’ll whip up some Italian meringue to decorate it with on top and sharpen my knife before starting.